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Microsoft announced yesterday that its Teams desktop app has reduced power consumption in video calls and meetings by up to 50 percent since June 2020. The company claims that these performance improvements should help to ensure that Microsoft Teams delivers a consistent user experience on low-end Windows PCs. Microsoft explains that it achieved significant gains…

Microsoft releases 51 patches, fixing 48 bugs, including 1 zero-day flaw. There’s also an update for all Teams clients and Outlook on Mac on February, 2022 Patch Tuesday. Windows and Windows Server Patch Tuesday February 2022 updates This month Microsoft patched a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2022-21984) in Microsoft DNS server. The bug can only…

Microsoft has unveiled a handful of new capabilities for Teams Rooms on Android devices, including support for webinars, reactions, and HDMI ingest. The company has announced in a message on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center that these new features aim to improve the collaboration experience for meeting participants. First up, Microsoft is bringing some enhancements…

If you are a Premium member over at Thurrott.com, our sister site, Paul Thurrott and I are doing a live AMA (Ask me Anything) tomorrow on YouTube. Similar to Paul’s weekly ‘Ask Paul’ forum AMA, but in video form, Paul (and Russell) will be answering any questions you have related to technology, Thurrott.com and the…

Microsoft has launched a new Microsoft Defender Preview app for Windows and Android devices. This is currently available to download in the United States, but the company plans to expand its availability to all users worldwide later this year. The new Microsoft Defender Preview app is a centralized security solution that allows users to control…

Last week, Microsoft announced that it has temporarily disabled the MSIX protocol handler to prevent malicious attacks on Windows 10 and 11. The company says this change aims to address a newly discovered Windows AppX Installer spoofing vulnerability, which was discovered in December 2021. For those unfamiliar with the Windows AppX Installer, it’s a Windows…

Microsoft is finally getting ready to block Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros downloaded from the internet by default in several Office apps. The Redmond giant has already started restricting Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, and this change will now impact all VBA macros in Word, PowerPoint, Visio, Access, and Excel files. By default, Microsoft Office…

Microsoft is working on some important updates for its Teams collaboration service. The Redmond giant is planning to release a new LinkedIn integration for one-on-one chats in Microsoft Teams that should make it easier for users to learn more about their coworkers. More specifically, Microsoft Teams will add a new LinkedIn tab to the 1:1…

Managing Microsoft Teams if you’re an IT Pro can often be a complicated process that requires multiple services to be combined. When provisioning a team, services such as Azure Active Directory (AAD), SharePoint Online, and Exchange Online connect to the core plumbing. It means that for you as an IT administrator, you need to connect…

Microsoft has released out-of-band (OOB) updates for several Windows Server configurations to fix an Active Directory issue related to Microsoft .NET Framework. The company explained on the Windows health dashboard that the bug surfaced following the release of January 2022 Patch Tuesday updates (via Bleeping Computer).  “After installing updates released January 11, 2022 or later,…

Microsoft has warned users about a new multi-phase campaign targeting enterprise customers. The Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team detailed its findings on its Security blog, which indicates that these phishing attacks mainly target organizations that haven’t enabled multi-factor authentication (MFA). As the name suggests, multi-factor authentication (MFA) is an authentication technique that requires two…

Earlier this week, Amazon announced some important compliance updates for Amazon FSx for Windows File Server. The company says that its popular cloud file storage service is finally FedRAMP compliant. Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program For those unfamiliar, FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) is a US government program that helps to standardize…